Love and dating site in paraguay 2016

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/ 20-Jul-2017 02:16

In view of these facts, the question is obvious: why isn't everyone flocking to Asunció for the ultimate cut-price city break?"If only there was a guide book, then surely people would come here," bemoans Raúl, a 22-year-old graduate who, along with his friends, has decided to escape the serenity of downtown and take me to the suburbs, where all manner of baroque grotesqueries are being constructed for the Paraguayan elite.Isolation and rampant corruption have made most of his friends flee to Spain or the United States."You might think it's cheap", Raúl tells me, "but if you're earning the average salary [about £110 per month] then life here isn't cheap at all." Raúl's feelings are echoed by his friends. Just go downtown and see how many counterfeit goods you can pick up.Getting a true bargain in the cheapest city on Earth is not as easy as you might think. After only 20 minutes in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, I'd already found a fantastic café in the heart of the centre which served an empanada, bursting with ham and cheese and the size of a travel pillow, for the equivalent of 55p. Within half an hour the news of my empanada had spread through the entire club. You've just eaten the most expensive empanada in Paraguay! Mercer Consulting, which compiles an annual list, has placed it as the least expensive city to live in for the fifth year running.But later that evening, as I chatted to hordes of partying Paraguayans in a nightspot called the Bambuddha, I told a group about my supposedly thrifty find. An old man approached me and wordlessly put a hand on my shoulder in sympathy. With 141 places separating Asunció from Moscow, the world leading wallet-shredder (London is in second place), the prices really are extraordinary.For anyone used to the quick-fire urbanity experienced in other South American capitals then the undeniable charm of Asunció* will seem like a somnambulant afternoon in the park.Parks are, incidentally, a great way to slow your pulse to Paraguayan time.

Complete with resident footsoldiers, it is a shrine to President Francisco Lopez, an admirer of Napoleon who decided to invade Brazil in 1864.

It's only when you get out of Asunción that you can really get an impression of Paraguay's vast emptiness.

With a population of only six million in a country bigger than Germany, Paraguay is road-trip country.

The likes of Lopez and Stroessner have done their best to ensure that the country they ruled is only the standard-bearer for bootleg football shirts today.

The exceptional cheapness of Asunció is great news for potential tourists from the West, but hardly a cause for celebration for locals, a situation confirmed by the current series of strikes and protests against current President Nicanor Duarte Frutos, the leader of the Colorado Party that has ruled the country for more than 60 years.

Trains ground to a halt here about 15 years ago, but the old station, complete with dog-tooth railings and turrets, shows just how ahead of its larger neighbours the country was in the early years following independence from Spain in 1811.